A Conservative Futurist and a Supply-Side Liberal Walk Into a Podcast …
About this episode
Klein, a self-described 'supply-side liberal,' talks with James Pethokoukis of the conservative American Enterprise Institute about the lost Jetsons future: the US economy, Pethokoukis argues, could be twice as large today if postwar growth rates had continued. They debate the 1970s breakpoint — Pethokoukis blames the end of the Apollo-era R&D surge (space race won, interest faded), the Nixon-era environmental and regulatory wave (NEPA, permitting battles), and a cultural turn toward affluent Americans' risk-aversion about growth. Klein pushes back that no other country took a different path, and presses on the 1970s backlash's aesthetics and politics ('Little Boxes,' NIMBYism). They find common ground on innovation policy: DARPA and Operation Warp Speed as models of state capacity, tolerance of failure, and more R&D spending. They disagree sharply on AI regulation — Pethokoukis urges a light, use-case-specific touch; Klein worries that, as with social media, we'd regulate wrong and be sorry.